The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has promulgated several communication standards. One of these standards is an IEEE 802.11-2012 standard. Prior to joining a WiFi network or a network compliant with the IEEE 802.11-2012 standard, a client station needs to discover one or more available access points in the neighborhood. After discovering one or more available access points, the client station can choose to associate with one of the discovered access points.
To discover an access point, the client station scans the channels in a band in which the client station operates (e.g., a 2.4 GHz band and/or a 5 GHz band). The client station can scan the channels in two ways. One way of scanning the channels is called active scanning, and another is called passive scanning. In active scanning, the client station transmits a probe request to elicit a probe response from one or more access points. In passive scanning, the client station scans the channels for beacons transmitted by one or more access points.